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Traffic

//ˈtɹæfɪk// adj, noun, verb

Definitions

Adjective

1
Congested. Philippines
"It’s super traffic here in Manila."

Noun

1
Moving pedestrians or vehicles, or the flux or passage thereof. uncountable, usually
"The traffic is slow during rush hour."
2
social or verbal interchange (usually followed by ‘with’) wordnet
3
The commercial transportation or exchange of goods, or the movement of passengers or people. uncountable, usually
"I had three large axes, and abundance of hatchets (for we carried the hatchets for traffic with the Indians)."
4
buying and selling; especially illicit trade wordnet
5
The illegal trade or exchange of goods, often drugs. uncountable, usually
"They, in turn, had long dominated the drug traffic in the area of north-east Afghanistan that they controlled during the Taliban years."

Show 6 more definitions

6
the amount of activity over a communication system during a given period of time wordnet
7
The exchange or flux of information, messages or data, as in a computer or telephone network. uncountable, usually
"The parish stank of idolatry, abominable rites were practiced in secret, and in all the bounds there was no one had a more evil name for the black traffic than one Alison Sempill, who bode at the Skerburnfoot."
8
the aggregation of things (pedestrians or vehicles) coming and going in a particular locality during a specified period of time wordnet
9
The exchange or flux of information, messages or data, as in a computer or telephone network.; Of CB radio, formal written messages relayed on behalf of others. uncountable, usually
10
The exchange or flux of information, messages or data, as in a computer or telephone network.; The amount of attention paid to a particular printed page etc., in a publication. uncountable, usually
"Those fixed locations which are sold to advertisers become preferred according to the expected page traffic."
11
The commodities of the market. uncountable, usually
"You'll see a draggled damsel / From Billingsgate her fishy traffic bear."

Verb

1
To pass goods and commodities from one person to another for an equivalent in goods or money; to buy or sell goods. intransitive
2
trade or deal a commodity wordnet
3
To trade meanly or mercenarily; to bargain. intransitive
4
deal illegally wordnet
5
To exchange in traffic; to effect by a bargain or for a consideration. transitive
"A Libyan longing took us, and we would have chosen, if we could, to bear a strand of grotesque beads, or a handful of brazen gauds, and traffic them for some sable maid with crisp locks, whom, uncoffling from the captive train beside the desert, we should make to do our general housework forever, through the right of lawful purchase."

Etymology

Etymology 1

From Middle French trafique, traffique (“traffic”), from Italian traffico (“traffic”) from trafficare (“to carry on trade”). Potentially from Vulgar Latin *trānsfrīcāre (“to rub across”); Klein instead suggests the Italian has ultimate origin in Arabic تَفْرِيق (tafrīq, “distribution, dispersion”), reshaped to match the native prefix tra- (“trans-”). The adjectival sense is possibly influenced by Tagalog trapik and follows a general trend in Philippine English to construct a noun from an adjective.

Etymology 2

Etymology 3

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